UNIT I.

THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE AND THE LANGUAGE LEARNERS

Lesson 1: The Nature of Language

INTRODUCTION
  Language is the most important phenomenon in the world. From birth to death, all our activities
are regulated by language. The human knowledge and culture is stored and transmitted in language.
Thinking is only possible through language. In our dreams, we make use of language. Language
dominates every aspect of human life. In fact, it is a yardstick to separate us from other beings. Language
is a mean of communication. With the help of language, we can express our thoughts and feelings to
others. Without language, society would be impossible.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

 Define language.
 Determined the concept of language
 Illustrate how language is considered a system
 Understand the connection of language and speech

Let’s Do It ! (Activity)
Fill in the blanks to complete the meaning of language:

Language is a system of__________, a _________for thought, and as _____interaction.

Medium, communication, social

Language is a ______of words or _____that people ______to express ______and feelings

to each other.

System, signs, use, thoughts

 Let’s Connect the Dots
(Analysis)

Language is a system of communication, a medium for thought, and a social

interaction.
Language is a system of words or signs that people use to express thoughts
and feelings to each other

Let’s Talk About It (Abstraction)

Language- is a method of human communication, either spoken or
written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional
way.
- is a symbol system based on pure or arbitrary conventions… infinitely
extendable and modifiable according to the changing needs and
conditions of the              speakers”
 According to this definition, language is a symbol system. Every
language selects some symbols for its selected sounds. The English
sound /k/ for example has the symbol k for it. These symbols form
the alphabet of the language and join in different combinations to
form meaningful words. 
- is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating
ideas,         emotions and desires by means of a system of
voluntarily produced symbols”.
 There are two terms in this definition that call for discussion: human
and non-instinctive. Language, as Sapir rightly said, is human. Only
humans possess language and all normal humans uniformly possess
it. Animals do have a communication system but it is not a developed
system. That is why language is said to be species-specific and
species-uniform. A recent and modern Linguist, Noam Chomsky
endorses that:
- is a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and
constructed out of a finite set of elements”.
 Chomsky meant to convey that each sentence has a structure.
Human brain is competent enough to construct different sentences
from out of the limited set of sounds/symbols belonging to a
particular language. Human brain is so productive that a child can at
any time produce a sentence that has never been said or heard
earlier.

Language as a System

Language is considered as a system primarily because it is made of linguistic

units that are interdependent of each other. Since they are smaller units
working within a whole system, by default, language becomes a system of
systems. The basic premise of this concept is that the diversity of features
that are found in language formation and production prevents it from being
described in a diluted or generalized way. Instead, language study has to be
pulled apart and studied by each of its multifunctional sub-systems. 

The idea of language being a system of systems comes primarily from an

article written by Mulder and Hervey (1975) and publishedLa Linguistique(11,
(2)). Mulder and Hervey's definition of language follows a functionalist
perspective in which language is defined as a "genus" and, as such, it should
be subdivided into a smaller sub-parts, or systems. 

Five sub-systems of language are identified as